Looking for guided meditations that leave space and have little talking.

Greetings, all! I've been doing Vipassana-style meditation for about six years, and have always been on the lookout for guided meditations that are unspoiled by lots of talking by the instructor. It's very hard to find guided meditations like this, as instructors tend to want to talk too often for my personal taste, and it often gets in the way of my meditations. I know that this is also something to work on in myself, but I really do greatly prefer guided sessions that only have brief talking with very occasional guidance/checking in during the session, with lots of space to allow for the actual meditation and (these would possibly be for more experienced meditators).

Anyone know where I might be able to find specific ones of this nature? Thanks in advance for your help!

A typical guided meditation is one where the person is guided throughout the meditation, often taking people through a visual (or suchlike) story, focusing on different senses or ideas etc.

Other guided meditations tend to be for theraputic purposes, i.e. to reduce stress, or relieve cravings etc. and these also involve lots of talking and focusing on certain ideas and senses etc.

If you're just looking for something that guides you down into a meditative state and then leaves you there in silence, you could try downloading the free "Discover Meditation" cd's from the link at the top of this forum. (http://www.project-meditation.org/project-meditation.zip)

Michael created these CD's and they provide just an introduction, the guiding down into meditation, and then a period of silence with just a tinkly bell at the end to indicate the end of the meditation period.

But is this really "meditation"? Isnt meditation supposed to lead you inwards, by calming your senses and mind?

All the other things may be called visualising, autogenous training, and so on... but everything that leads your focus to your thoughts (and you depend on your thoughts and mind if you listen to something, otherwise thered be no interpretation of whats being heard), imho shouldnt be called meditation... just to avoid confusion.

But there are different meditative states Pan. What you're referring to as meditation is a deep state, but other higher states where one follows the thoughts etc. can also be classed as meditation, just not as deep.

This is something more noticable in practices performed by Buddhists, for example.
They sometimes do a single pointed focus meditation, on a chant or mantra etc.
Other times they meditate on an 'idea' or 'principle', and this is called contemplative meditation. It doesn't involve controlling the thoughts, but the meditation is started by being guided in (or guiding oneself in) with an idea, such as considering that every other person is your mother (It's a buddhist thing!). With that idea in mind, one starts to meditate and let the mind contemplate that idea, not trying to control it or have judgements about it, but to let the awareness rest on the idea so that as the mind contemplates it we simply observe what arises from it. Because it involves getting into a meditative state, to allow us to simply observe without judgement, this is still an effective means of meditation, in order to seek the truth or answers to things, yet it does allow the mind to remain more active than when we practice a deep meditation practice such as we get with mantra based.

Other guided meditation, where someone talks you through things is, again, not about us taking control of what is happening in the mind, but to reach a meditative state where we can observe without judgement. Typically the guiding words simply create a situation or idea in the mind and involves some time to allow us to experience whatever happens from that situation. It doesn't require us to interpret what is happening whilst meditating, it only requires that we observe. Of course people do try and interpret things as they happen in the meditation (we see that a lot in questions asked on this forum) and this will distract us from the meditation practice and get us attached to thoughts. The best time to 'understand' what has occurred during meditation practice (if it's felt necessary) is after the meditation practice has finished.